


Trapped By The Bell

by liseuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseuse/pseuds/liseuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are painful backs and rubber ducks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trapped By The Bell

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [](http://grandilloquism.livejournal.com/profile)[**grandilloquism**](http://grandilloquism.livejournal.com/) and was betaed by [](http://busaikko.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://busaikko.livejournal.com/)**busaikko**. All mistakes belong to me. Thanks are due to George Orwell.

Remus stood on the front step looking at the doorbell. The doorbell that was just too high up to press against with his elbow, which was all he had free because Marlene had entrusted her bloody houseplants to him over Christmas while she went home to make polite conversation with her mother and Dorcas ground her teeth at her sister. He’d tried to explain that he and Sirius could barely keep themselves alive half the time and there was no chance these plants would survive, but she’d been insistent.

Remus stepped back slightly so he could see the front window of the flat, and sighed as he saw Sirius dancing around the living room. No doubt he had the record player on at some unearthly volume, which meant the neighbours would complain, and Sirius wouldn’t be able to hear the doorbell even if Remus could manage to ring it. Ringing the doorbell didn’t normally present this much of a challenge, Remus thought as he laughed to himself. Usually when he was carrying stuff he bent down and put whatever was impeding him on the floor, jabbed it with a finger, and then picked the stuff up again, or wandlessly unlocked the door. Except he’d managed to pull a muscle in his back whilst painting a wall and now he couldn’t bend. That meant he couldn’t put the damn plants down, and there was no way he could summon enough energy to even think about wandlessly magicking the damn bell.

Sirius had, of course, laughed himself silly when he realised that Remus had injured himself painting a wall. One wall. Well, Remus was forced to admit, not even the whole of a wall, and all the walls in the flat added together probably didn’t make a proper wall as it was. Remus maintained that it was not that stupid, and people must injure themselves doing DIY all the time, and that this was why they were wizards for fuck’s sake. He could kick himself for giving in to Sirius’s pleading face and painting the wall manually. Because Sirius was finding it so amusing Remus was forced to pretend that it didn’t really hurt all that much and that he was fine. Which was why he had made his painful way across London to go and see Marlene and Dorcas, sat gingerly on the edge of their sofa while they laughed at him as well, and then shuffled home. Forgetting that because he couldn’t bend down he was probably going to be trapped outside his own flat until Sirius decided he wanted a cigarette.

Sighing, Remus turned around so he could lean back against the wall of the doorstep. He’d worked out the other day that if he braced his knees he could keep his back straight on the wall and get a little minor relief. Sirius had come into the bedroom and seen Remus like that with an expression of bliss on his face and had promptly corpsed with laughter. It made, Remus thought, quite a nice change to have Sirius laugh at him when he was injured. Generally Sirius looked as if Remus was going to fall down and die at any point whenever he was injured and flapped around him like he was the second incarnation of Madam Pomfrey. To be treated like any other idiot who had stretched a bit too quickly and done their back in whilst painting was a relief.

Marlene had grinned at him when he’d told her that earlier, and nodded to the kitchen where it sounded like Dorcas was fighting with the saucepans. “She gets like that,” Marlene said with a fond smile. “It’s nice, I suppose, but it does make me feel a bit annoyed. Which is daft. You’d think I’d want someone to be concerned about me.”

Remus chuckled and then winced. “It makes me feel like I’m little again. Someone worrying about me all the time.” He turned his tea mug around in his hands and swallowed the last mouthful. “I know he’s out there fighting and he might get hurt, but I just put it out of my mind and try not to worry. And when he comes home with a giant gash on his face I try and remember an antiseptic spell, tell him to stop being such a fucking idiot, and get a curry for tea. He flaps around like a bit of a cut on my knee is going to cause me to keel over and need a grave digging.”

“Stop being mean about Sirius and his tendency to worry,” Dorcas called from the kitchen. “He likes worrying about people, it makes him feel needed and necessary. Not something you get much of in families like his.”

Marlene tipped her head and smiled sadly. “I wish she didn’t know what she was talking about.”

“Me too,” Remus said and then steeled himself to stand up. “Don’t you dare offer me your arm. I can get up from a sofa, thank you very much.”

Marlene, thankfully, didn’t try and argue with him and just stood hiding her laughter badly as Remus inched his way slowly up from the sofa. When he’d made it, and his breathing had evened out, she carefully hugged him, kissed him on the cheek and loaded him up with houseplants. “Be careful!” she said far too cheerfully and then shut the door behind him. He could hear her and Dorcas cackling with glee as he shuffled down the steps and onto the pavement. Remus dearly wished he could Apparate home but Messrs Prink and Plumstead’s Pain-Killing Potion had both a ‘No Magic For Six Hours!’ dire warning all over the bottle and, even more irritatingly, no apparent effect on pain.

Remus was settling nicely into the second half hour of loitering outside his own flat, wondering if his back was going to play nice if he bent to put one of the plants down. Not only did he want to get inside the flat he paid rent for, but the fronds were getting up his nose and since someone had walked past smoking a cigarette ten minutes ago all he wanted to do was get the packet out of his trouser pocket and light one. He braced his knees carefully and went to put a plant down but before he could get anywhere near the ground his back made it very clear that that was not going to be happening, thank you very much Mr Lupin, and he eased himself back onto the wall.

The only good thing about this was that at some point Sirius had to leave the flat. They had no food, for one thing. And then when he left Remus could just pretend to be standing there as if he had just arrived and felt like a bit of a breather.

Remus exhaled heavily. Sirius could be dense at times, but he wasn’t that dense. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall. He’d slept standing up in a cow shed in Ukraine once, surely he could manage it on his own doorstep.

“Remus Lupin, what are you doing?”

Remus started awake and hissed through his teeth as his back emphatically disagreed with the sudden motion. “Lily! How … nice … to see you.”

“Yes,” Lily said, still laughing, “I imagine it is. Has Sirius kicked you out? Are you holding all your worldly possessions? Why do they include plants? Has Sirius kicked you out because you’ve started another ill-advised plantcare routine?”

“Sirius hasn’t kicked me out. I can’t reach the doorbell with these plants in my hands, and I can’t put them down because I’ve done my back in. Be a doll and ring the doorbell?” Remus looked pleadingly at Lily who was holding her sides and cackling by this point.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just, oh, oh, I wish James were here to see this!”

“Yes, yes, do let’s all laugh at the stupid idiot who has been locked out of his own fucking flat for an hour,” Remus said through gritted teeth, and then smiled wryly. “Sorry, Lil’. It’s not your fault. I'm just tired and I want a sit down and a mug of tea and a cigarette and my back to stop hurting.”

Lily wrinkled her nose at him. “You sound like Peter with a hangover. Stop it. It’s disconcerting. I will ring the doorbell for you. As long as I can laugh at this forever.”

“Feel free,” Remus said. “Laugh until you can laugh no more. Just start when we’re inside?”

“Promise.” Lily said, and winked. Remus had never quite trusted that wink. It was the same one she’d used all through school when saying something was perfectly safe. Generally just before it blew up. But she did reach up and press the doorbell.

“Don’t you have a key?” Lily said as she turned back to Remus. “It is your flat.”

“I left it on the kitchen counter this morning,” Remus said and shook his head. “I am the most idiotic of all idiots.”

Lily snickered, and then the door opened with a creak. “Hello, Lily!” Sirius said. “Come in, I’m dancing.” He stepped out and did a double take as he saw Remus. “Dare I ask?” he said, raising an eyebrow quizzically.

“Could you just help me off the wall, and maybe take a plant off me?” Remus asked, and tried to look plaintive. “And then can you give me a cigarette?”

“Why does he sound like Peter with a hangover?” Sirius said in what he obviously thought was an undertone, to Lily.

She stage-whispered back, “He’s done his back in, and he left his key on the side. He’s been here for an hour.”

Sirius sat down, heavily, on the doorstep and laughed. It was his proper barking laugh, which usually made Remus laugh as well, but he wasn’t sure he could trust himself to open his mouth without crying, so instead he raised an eyebrow and hem-hemmed in his best McGonagall impersonation.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sirius said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. He stood up, looked around and kissed Remus on the forehead before he took one of the plants off him, and held a hand out. “Fancy getting off that wall?”

“I don’t think I have ever wanted anything as much as that,” Remus said and then gritted his teeth as he held onto Sirius’s hand and straighten up. “Oh buggering Saint Ethelburga and all the martyrs.” Remus stood and exhaled heavily.

Lily snorted and took the other two plants off him. “Come on, Lupin, up the wooden stairs.” She took Sirius’s key from his hand, and danced up the steps in front of them. By the time Remus and Sirius had made it up, Sirius having had to stop on the middle landing to laugh a bit more at the expression of grim determination on Remus’s face, Lily had put the plants down, watered them and put the kettle on to boil.

Sirius helped Remus take his coat off and then smiled softly at him. “I’ll go and run you a bath,” he said. “See if you can get yourself out of your clothes.”

“Why, Sirius Black, are you trying to take advantage of me?” Remus grinned, and then looked mournfully at his jumper. “If you are, I think you’ll have to do all the clothes removing as well. Unless somewhat patched jumpers are your newest turn-on.”

Sirius huffed a laugh, and flicked his wand at Remus as he closed the bathroom door behind them. “Divestio!” he said with slightly alarming glee and then swished his wand at the taps so they started to gush hot water. “Perhaps the ravishing can wait until later. I like my partners both willing and able.”

“Oh, merciful heavens,” Remus sighed as he sank back in the hot water. Sirius gave him a fond smile and then dropped a rubber duck into the water.

“I’ll go and get you a mug of tea. Mister Pooter can keep you company while I’m gone.”

“Thank you,” Remus called as Sirius closed the door behind him. He shifted down a little further in the bath and Mister Pooter drifted closer until they were nose to beak. “Your owner is a very silly man, Mister Pooter, but I do love him.” Remus yawned and felt his eyes begin to close.

***

Sirius pushed the door open with his foot and put the mugs down on the windowsill along with a book. Lily had made the tea, stolen three of Remus’s records and then Floo-ed home so she could tell James all about Remus’s idiocy. “Tea up!” he called, and then realised that Remus had fallen asleep with Mister Pooter looking worriedly at him. “Bless you, you idiot man.” Sirius smiled and cast a minor buoyancy charm. He sat down on the floor beside the bath and summoned a mug of tea and the book. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen …”


End file.
